by aramatzne@gmail.com | 5 Sep 2022 | Roads Taken
Africa in retrospect
My gear is mostly clean and stored now. A substantive layer of red grit has been rinsed from the bathtub after scrubbing boots, duffel, and backpack. I am getting used to the sun being in the southern sky again. My hands no longer look like worn stone and I seem to have finally lost the sand in my teeth after face-planting on the downslope of the famous red dunes. This was not an easy trip, long days, difficult roads, heat, cold, wind, and dust.
What’s the difference between this and fieldwork in New Mexico?
Space, time. People. Attitudes. Beliefs. Distances, geographic and human. Colors. Textures. The light. Elephants. Hyenas and lions.
My camera stopped working early in the trip. Although disappointed and frustrated by the sudden lack of this visual extension of myself, it gave me permission to see. Instead of looking quickly and then taking photos, I watched the landscape; I observed the animals. I saw more and saw it more viscerally. I picked up my cell phone to take a photo and realized the futility of trying to capture something so distant and obscured, or so intimate and detailed, and put it down again. Slowly shifting away from the thought that poor resolution was better than none.
I have much to process, the photos I did take with my camera and phone, and the images my head holds. These latter are somewhat out of order and are filtered through a light I can’t recreate on a different continent, with colors faded and intimacy lost.
Here are a few landscapes from South Africa and Namibia before the camera quit.
More to come. Stay tuned.
by aramatzne@gmail.com | 29 Nov 2021 | Roads Taken
The sky above
From sunrise to sunset, there are no obstructions in the light. No trees create shade, no ridgelines prevent the sun from rising for hours past sunrise. Clouds move across the landscape casting shadows briefly as they sail past. And, then at dusk, the Earth turns golden. Some days, the clouds, the setting sun, and the glowing Earth conspire to create a study in contrasts and a moment so clear, you are forced to pause. There is nothing but this, and nothing more is necessary.
by aramatzne@gmail.com | 27 Apr 2020 | Roads Taken
The final leg of the Svalbard journey was from Montana, where Big Cat was staying with a friend, to Oregon. Big Cat and I set up for a road trip. I planned to stay in Boise, halfway between Bozeman and Ashland, but nine hours out of Bozeman, I hit Boise and thought, hell, Ashland is only eight more hours. And, so I drove on. The following is a road trip poem and the final Svalbard installment. I’m sure there will be more about Svalbard to come to these pages but this is technically the end of the trip.
Itinerary
Longyearbyen – Oslo
Oslo – Copenhagen
Copenhagen – Newark
Newark – Denver
Denver – Bozeman
One day rest
Bozeman – Ashland
Road trip
Bozeman 0900
Autumn light in golden cottonwoods and aspens
Mind’s eye sees Arctic blue light
Elk herd #1
“Caution! Animals on roadway. 12 bison killed by vehicles in 2018”
West Yellowstone
Coffee
Henry’s Lake
Rigby
“When you gotta habit
get banged $2”
Gas
Idaho National Laboratory
Craters of the Moon
Sagebrush desert and lava fields
Glacier mirages
Sardine juice for Big Cat
Lunch for me
Identified roadkill:
1 Badger
1 elk
1 cat
Uncounted deer and skunks
1 jackrabbit
1 raccoon
Elk herd #2
Gas
Boise rush hour
NPR first time in 71 days
Trump still an idiot
Coffee
Keep going
Sunset
Not polar night
Oregon
White Settlement Road offers glimpse of past
Says more about present
Sardine juice sloshed on truck seats while attempting to catch throwing up cat
Nap
Harney County
Pacific Time Zone
Gas
Starvation Ridge
Thirty miles; one car
Wagontire. Population: zero
Coyote crossing road
Wait. Motion entirely wrong
Two bounds; gone
Straight tail; big body
Revision: wolf crossing road
Midnight pit stop
Moonlight on sagebrush
Too cold for rattlesnakes
Coyote chorus
Coyotes for sure
Just past full moon
Nap
Orion rising; Mars setting
North Star oddly to north
Christmas Valley
Silver Lake
Cattle guard
Open range
Black angus; black night
Juniper scent
Crater Lake
Great horned owl nearly road-killed
Golden moonlight on aspens
Lake of the Woods
Into the trees
Quiet stars
Ashland 0445
Good night, Moon
by aramatzne@gmail.com | 12 Sep 2017 | Roads Taken
Custom built crosses, all sizes
Custom Built Crosses. All Sizes. The Cross Guys.
If I lived in Texas I would be angry also.
I took this photo in Texas. I guess that’s all I have to say about that.
by aramatzne@gmail.com | 1 Mar 2017 | Roads Taken
A wild winter ride to iconic Central Oregon hot springs offered these landscapes. The road to Summer Lake is a beautiful stretch of little-used highway along the western edge of the Great Basin. Sagebrush gives way to alkali lakes, winds rip across the open flat, and clouds create another dimension of life above the high desert.
An unsettled day in the high desert.
Silver Lake, Oregon, snow from the west meets billowing clouds from the east.
Snow seems to be falling from Summer Lake up to the clouds.
Between the land and sky of Central Oregon lies Silver Lake.
Summer Lake Hot Springs soaking shed